The license of respect tries to facilitate optional ethical suggestions on top of the underlaying real license.
The real license is the what you have to obey by law. You have to follow all their guidelines and rules.
The respect part is what you should ethically do, but it optional. There are suggestions in terms of advertising and attribution, in regards of donating money or other resources, and tips on how to share the licensed work and your work.
The license of respect works the other way as well. Sometimes it is very hard or nigh on impossible to comply with all the terms of some licenses, even with the best intentions. This license can make this easier for you.
The underlaying license's terms are legal requirements. However this license will try explain how the copyright holder expects people to comply with these requirements.
But the best thing is always to ask the copyright holder for clarification or excemptions.
If a piece of work is licensed with respect, it should specify with license respect is wrapped around.
If no other license is specified, and the work is not software, the default and assumed real license is:
If the work is software, and no other license is specified the default and assumed license is:
If the real license is specified it is generally either the default ones mentioned above, or one of these:
You can use respect with other open source licenses, however it is up to you to make sure it is compatible.
You should attribute the people behind the work licensed.
People have big egoes, and like to be heralded.
Or they like people to recognise to work they have put into something.
Or they depend on the advertisement for future work.
Or their work use other peoples work whos license demand or would like attribution.
And to stop people claiming others work as their own.
The underlying license has legal requirements on how to attribute the work. By using a respect license, the copyright holder has a varied expectancy on attribution. How important and central this work is to your work affects how much attribution is expected.
Mention in the about page, release notes or similar
Full paragraph in about page, release notes or similar, and perhaps link on front page if a web site/app.
Very Visible link or image on front page and more. Detailed paragraphs in about page or similar, perhaps a seperate page on the work itself.
Different underlying licenses have different requirements, however most require this work to be freely distributed under the license agreement. Most also require any work based on this work to be distributed under a similar agreement. Some allow you to create work which uses this work without shareing your work.
However this is an open source license, so it is ethically suggested to share all work.
Again how you share this work and derivatives depends on how important it is to you.
Providing a link to this work's web site is usually enough. Your own work should be shared by email or similar if contacted.
Some details on distribution of this work. Brief explanation of derived work. Downloadable derivative work or by contact.
Thorough explanation on how to acquire this work. Detailed explanation of derived work. Download links to all source or similar of derived work.
Monatory reimbursement is not a requirement of any of the standard underlying licenses. They try to be free as in speech as well as beer.
Donations are however appreciated, and will provide resources to enhance the licensed product further.
If you generate a large revenue from using the licensed work, then it is only fair to show appreciation of their work by donating. Again how important this work is to your organisation affects how much you should donate. Also some prefer regular subscription models to one off donations.
The size of you organisation affects the expected donations. Large multinational with huge revenues are expected to donate more. Small organisation or just one indivual, are not expected to donate anything, especially if they do not generate much money by using it.
But if you attribute and advertise the licensed work quite a lot, if you participate in the development with bug reports, feature request or actual development, if you share and distribute the work well, then this counter balances the need for any donations.
The formula used to estimate a reasonable donation is not exact, but a combination of ( Size * Revene * Importance ) / (Attribution * Distribution * Participation ). So the size and revenue sets how much to donate, which is multiplied by importance for relevance. How much you follow these guidelines and beyond is then offset against that.
Variables | Donation | Subscription | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Company size | Revenue | Importance | Attribution | Distribution | Participation | ||
Large, 10,000+ | Large, $100 Mill+ | Core | Some | Some | Little | $100,000 | $5000 |
Large, 10,000 | Large, $500 Mill+ | Little | Some | Some | Little | $1,000 | $0 |
Medium, 100+ | Medium, $10 Mill+ | Core | Some | Some | Little | $5,000 | $1,000 |
Medium, 100+ | Medium, $10 Mill+ | Little | Some | Some | Little | $500 | $0 |
Small, 1+ | Some, $1 Mill+ | Core | Some | Some | Little | $500 | $100 |
Small, 1+ | Some, $1 Mill+ | Little | Some | Some | Little | $0 | $50 |
Large, 10,000+ | Large, $100 Mill+ | Medium | Alot | Alot | Alot | $1000 | $1000 |
Medium, 100+ | Medium, $10 Mill+ | Medium | Alot | Alot | Alot | $500 | $250 |
Small, 1+ | Some, $1 Mill+ | Medium | Alot | Alot | Alot | $0 | $0 |
Small, 1+ | Little, <$50,000 | Medium | Some | Some | Some | $0 | $0 |
Disclaimer: This was not written by a lawyer, but the Creative Commons or the Free Software Foundation can assist in legal matters.
Unless fully released the author reserves the right
to make minor changes to this license version.
Fully released versions require new version number if any changes are made.
The online version of this is at flurdy.com/docs/license/respect/.
This license document itself is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.